Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: recent

About Games That I’ve Played Recently

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post I am going through what games I have been playing recently. Every game that I pick up and start to play isn’t one that I would like to write about or take a picture and show here. I do play lots of video games. I usually buy new games from time to time. I like to buy games I like to play or that are somewhat or in some way significant for me as a video game hobbyist and a player.

I have recently played a lot with my new and shiny Nintendo Switch 2. It has a lot to offer as a console. While being an expensive purchase it already has some decent games that you can play. I had to buy a memory card for Switch 2. I ended up with a memory card that has 256 GB of storage space. I had to pay something like 70 euros for the memory card alone. I also bought the controller (the updated Pro Controller 2) and that alone cost 110 euros. The console was also a bit more expensive here in Finland where I live.

I have been talking and writing about how Switch 2 doesn’t yet have so many games available. Considering this there was a tiny relief for gamers that are waiting to see some more games as the new Donkey Kong game came available last week. Earlier I said that it could be a game that I am not so interested in. But you know what? I decided to give it a chance.

Donkey Kong Bananza cost me 75 euros. It is said that it takes about 17 hours to beat this game. I haven’t actually played it yet since I got it last Saturday and I also haven’t yet finished Burnout Paradise Remastered although I have already been playing it for a bit over 10 hours. I am hoping to finish it soon.

When it comes to Donkey Kong Bananza I have read some news about it. I think it offers some nice 3D environment for a player to move around as the main character accomplishing some tasks. I am not a big fan of Donkey Kong games. I have played recently Donkey Kong Country Returns HD that is actually a 2D platformer game. I also like the original Donkey Kong Country that was released for Super Nintendo aka SNES back in the golden 90s.

When it comes to Nintendo I am not as familiar with it as I am with Sega and PlayStation or even Xbox. I never had a NES or SNES as a kid. Instead I was playing with PC, Mega Drive and PS1 as young person growing up. I have later tried to correct this matter by getting first a Nintendo Wii and later a GameCube. This is something that I love – exploring something that these a bit older games still have to offer. I also like to go back to PS2 and original Xbox. I am also still playing a lot of PS3 and Xbox 360 games.

Something that I have also tried to, like, focus on are some handheld consoles and games that are released for them. I have to say that PSP and Nintendo DS seem to be the most fascinating ones when it comes to handhelds. They have lots of cheap games available and have some power to offer also. I do have a Game Boy Color. I also play some Game Boy games on an adapter to SNES. I am curious about Sega Game Gear and also Game Boy Advance games and would like to same day get to know them better.

The first Nintendo Switch might have been the push for me to get closer to Nintendo as a video game enthusiast. I wasn’t among the first ones to buy it when it was first released. I did decide to buy Switch Lite as it was cheaper than the regular version of Switch. Nintendo has so many great consoles. I think Super Mario Bros was a real breakthrough as a video game. Nintendo has been there for so long. We have so much to thank them for. So, I do find Nintendo’s new and also a bit older products (games and consoles) very interesting.

I have also played recently a lot with my Xbox Series X. I played Robocop Rogue City for a while. This game is very nice especially if you like Robocop movies. The game gives you a detailed view of the main character (Murphy) and it features also his partner that was with him in the first movie. It has been a while since I watched it. There is also a completely new Robocop game out there (Unfinished Business) if you find these topics interesting.

Also I have played some retro games. I have played Rayman 2 The Great Escape for some hours. It is s fun three dimensional platformer for PS1. It is a good game and if you are comparing it to the first Rayman, also released for PS1 among many other consoles and PC, it has this 3D environment as the first game is purely 2D.

I have so many consoles attached to my setup currently. Mainly I have been using my Switch 2 that actually required me to attach it directly to the TV instead of a separate HDMI switch. I have used also my Xbox Series X and my Raspberry Pi 5 that has 8 GB of RAM. These are the three devices I have mostly used for a long time already. I play my PS1 games and also some older systems games on Raspberry Pi 5 that runs emulation on Recalbox. This is just the easiest way to play these kinds of games.

As I do have many consoles attached to my television I rarely switch the HDMI connections. I mainly just select a channel from my remote controller of my television and I already have a chance to choose one of these three connected devices. If I would like to use PS3 or PS1 or any other device I would have to search for the correct option from two separate HDMI connectors. So, I have been happy using just these three devices.

Concentrating More To Modern and Recent Instead of Retro Video Games

Posted on by Viljami

I have lots of games already for my Xbox Series X. The backlog is getting a bit heavy. I have given a though to my habit and hobby of collecting games. I started getting into retro games back in 2016. Since then prices of games that can be categorized as retro games has risen seriously. I have witnessed these prices to go up with games ending up 3 times more expensive than what they used to be.

Why has this happened one might start to figure. One thing about this issue is the rising popularity of collecting and playing video games. Both types of games are popular if we think about modern and retro. Modern games can be produced and delivered to almost as many players as there is a demand for. While we have witnessed some cases of games being produced too many for consumers to buy, I mean for example the ET Atari 2600 game, that the manufacturers have been left with several unsold copies in their hands. I think today this isn’t a big problem as also many customers buy their games as digital editions.

The people that used to play video games in the 80s and 90s are coming to an age that they have a bit more currency to spend to their dear hobby. Did you notice how quickly classic and mini consoles were completely sold out. The demand was huge. These are same consumers that are buying today most of games that are sold through different forms of delivery. Some are sold in digital stores that are available for players of PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo or PC.

Also it seems to be a common way to think that retro games should be bought instead of just downloading them and playing them directly on a gamers personal computer. There are of course many ways to achieve the emulation for these systems. People are spending lots of money to get their hands on some retro consoles. Some games are also very expensive. I have collided in some very heavy prices when I have gone through a gaming web shop. It seems like every interesting game has now got a double or even triple of a price compared to what these prices were back when I started collecting games.

There should be more options. There should be more devices that support older games or retro games. There should be ways to play these games on recent systems. We are in an era in which people are becoming a bit more technically knowledgeable than these last generations that were more into to games than into technology. Especially I see the 90s, maybe my generation, as a time that more players wanted to just play games instead of programming their own applications. You can think about how consumers of electronics were like back in the 70s or 80s. Things have changed a lot and are still constantly changing.

So it isn’t a thing for a young person and a hobbyist to build up a gaming system. At first you might want to buy a PC. Then you will need an operating system for it. I would prefer Lakka OS but there are also more options. So, this is a Linux operating system. It isn’t, today, legal to just download games as ROM files. You have to own the game that you download. That seems to be the rule of thumb here. While there are ways to convert your existing games to rom files I think this has been made too hard for an average consumer.

One option would be to make some or even all old games available to digital game shops. This has been already accomplished. Some retro games are sold and some you can get to play if you have an account that you have registered and payed for. Is this enough for gamers? I think there are ways to keep playing the most important games that exist but there should be more discussion on this issue. We might some day face a problem that we cannot play every game that we would like to. I think some games are just too big, important and interesting to just be left out of our options about what game to play next.

My point here is, my dear reader, that I have thought about these matters and I have decided to play mainly recently released games. I don’t yet know how long I am going to keep this up. Maybe til the end of year or something like that. I just think I have spent lots of money in retro games that aren’t bringing me actually anything worth experiencing as a video game addict. Games that I do play, have been playing and will keep playing from now on are especially these recent titles. I do have also an interest towards Xbox One games since they are backward compatible with Series X. I have played NBA2K23, Diablo IV and Far Cry 6. NBA2K23 seems to take forever to be even near of a completion of the game. So, there is a lot to play for me.

I am also waiting and looking to get FFXVI for my Series X. It is, to my knowledge, appearing to the Xbox store in December of this year. I also have a Nintendo Switch that is also my second newest gaming console after Series X. I am not finding PS4 so interesting at the moment. I kind of skipped Hogwarts Legacy. The next game I am waiting to get to play is probably Forza Motorsport. I don’t know if I am ready to play some Starfield. It is an interesting new game from developers of Skyrim. It is going to be released 6th of September this year.